1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a body-region separately weighing system and a method conducted using the same which weigh each of six separate body regions of the head, trunk, right and left arms and right and left legs of a human body.
2. Description of the Background Art
It is essential that a person should weigh himself or herself to thereby become aware of whether the person is in good health. A person usually weighs himself or herself with standing on a weighing machine, for example, given by Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-141511 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-48631. Conventionally, the body weight was measured by a so-called platform machine and has recently been taken by various electronic and digital weighing machines on the market. A variety of sensors (a distortion gauge, an electrostatic capacity sensor and a piezo-electric sensor) indispensable for reliable weighing have also been developed including a precision tuning-fork sensor. Such a sensor detects a physical or mechanical variation in the load of body weight and converts it into an electric signal, and a computer acquires the electric signal outputted by the sensor, reduces it to a body weight through a data processing and displays it on a screen or analyses it diversely.
From the viewpoint of lifestyle-related disease prevention or the like, so-called obesity prevention is crucial, thereby requiring information on body weight, as well as body fat quantity, particularly, visceral fat quantity or the like concentrating in the trunk. In addition to the trunk, in order to prevent osteoporosis, it is necessary to become aware of the bone mineral density or bone quantity of both arms, both legs or the like. The body fat quantity or the bone quantity can be obtained by measuring the weight and volume of each region of a human body to grasp the density of each region.
Conventionally, health was checked or managed, for example, using a BMI or another health index, without distinguishing persons having the same body weight by the thickness of the limbs, or without distinguishing persons clearly by the location of a body fat, the viscera or the legs, or by such another.
In addition, health or nutrition instructions were given without clarifying gains in the weight of the head, trunk, both arms, both legs and another region of a child as growing from infant to youth. Besides, how well a person can develop limb muscles through sports training, how much an aged person has lost limb muscles, how serious osteoporosis is, or such another, was extremely vaguely evaluated merely using the weight of the whole body.
Conventionally, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-321350 offers an art of measuring the quantity of some substance in each body region using bioelectric impedance. This measurement is conducted by measuring a potential difference and an electric current between predetermined regions of a subject and calculating a bioelectric impedance to thereby obtain the fat weight, weight other than the fat, water content, cell-fluid weight or the like of each body region.
In the conventional body-region separately measuring method conducted using bioelectric impedance, however, a considerable error can be produced depending upon the body condition of a subject at the time of measurement, thereby hindering obtaining measured values reliable enough to give nutrition instructions, and especially in the weight of each body region, only acquiring estimates. Accordingly, a body-region separately weighing system and a method for the same capable of meeting the above health-management demand are not yet disclosed.